


don't wanna cry but i break that way

by brahe



Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: Crying, Cuddling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hepatitis, Hospitalization, Hospitals, M/M, Some pet names, roger has emotions, what can i say except i have no control, yeah its That
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-07 07:40:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19204900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brahe/pseuds/brahe
Summary: He cards his fingers through Roger’s hair. “It’s okay to cry, you know. I’m sure it’s a lot.”“Says the one who’s been laid up for weeks withhepatitis, ” Roger says, his laugh wet and more of a rush of breath than anything else.Brian just hums. “I’m glad you’re here. I don’t…I’m just really glad you’re here.”“Where the hell else would I be?” Roger pushes himself up to look at Brian’s face better. “There is nowhere else I’d be.”





	don't wanna cry but i break that way

**Author's Note:**

> this is entirely [hazy's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/haisydaisy/pseuds/haisydaisy) fault for coming up with this universe in the first place & i completely blame her for this mess
> 
> i mostly just wanted to write roger crying so,, i have no excuses
> 
> title from where's my love by syml

Every time Roger watches Brian open his eyes, the relief that surges through him is nearly enough to make him cry. It’s slightly less intense, now that the doctors have told them they’re nearly out of the woods, but Roger still finds himself breathless every time those hazel eyes open, washed out from illness and exhaustion, but still so beautiful. 

“Hey there,” he says, when Brian blinks over at him. “How’re you feeling?”

Brian hums. “A little –” Brian starts, stopping to clear this throat. “A little better than usual, actually,” he tells him, and not for the first time Roger wonders how much Brian isn’t telling them, won’t tell them.

“Do you want me to call the nurse?” Roger asks, and Brian shakes his head.

“No,” he says, and takes a deep breath. Roger notices the way he winces a little when he accidentally pulls at his chest. “I’m okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” Brian says, offering Roger a little smile that looks a little wane at the edges. “What about you?”

“What  _ about _ me?” Roger asks. 

“How are you feeling?”

Roger blinks at him. “Are you really asking me that?” he says, and – it’s a Brian move, really, always worried about everyone else before himself, even when he’s been two inches from a deathbed for more days than Roger would like to think about.

Brian furrows his brows a little. “I just did, didn’t I?”

And it’s – it’s not like Roger can really answer truthfully, can he? How has he been feeling, sitting beside his best friend for days on end thinking he might not make it to the end of the week, listening to him cry quietly to himself when they told him he might lose his arm, watching him sleep and not really knowing if he’d wake back up. How has he been feeling, lost in thoughts about what Brian said to him two nights before they left for the tour when he thought Roger was asleep, drowning in his own feelings about all of it, terrified of the realization that this is likely it for him.

“I –” Roger starts, and cuts himself off. He’s not entirely sure how to answer that question at all.

“I suppose I’ve been worried,” he says, eventually, and it’s just enough of the truth that it doesn’t constrict his chest too much to admit.

“Worried?” Brian asks, like he doesn’t understand why Roger would ever be worried about him, and Roger’s heart squeezes.

“Yeah, Bri, I’ve been pretty worried,” he says, and it’s harsher than he intends it to be, but he can’t seem to help it. “How could I not be? You nearly died!”

He hadn’t meant to shout, but it’s out there now, hanging in the silence of the room. He runs a hand down his face, lets his shoulders sag as he leans against the wall. 

“Sorry,” he mutters, looking up to find Brian’s soft, concerned face looking at him. “I didn’t mean to yell.”

Brian just looks at him some more, before he shifts to the left side of the bed.

“C’mere,” Brian says, voice still so rough with sleep and disuse. Roger hesitates with a half shake of his head.

“I can’t.”

“Come on,” Brian repeats, a little stronger this time, and he holds a hand out for Roger. Roger takes a step forward before he stops himself.

“I don’t – I don’t want to hurt you,” he says.

“You won’t,” Brian tells him, shaking his outstretched hand a little. “C’mere.”

Roger’s got Brian’s hand in his before he even really thinks about moving the rest of the way across the room, and he goes along as Brian pulls him to the edge of the bed.

 

Roger takes his time getting in the bed – maybe a bit too much – but he’d never forgive himself if he did something to hurt Brian more. He eventually settles on his side, his right ear over Brian’s chest, the top of his head tucked under Brian’s chin, and Brian’s arm comes up around him, settling on his back.

And it’s then, Brian’s hands on him for the first time in weeks, his heartbeat slow but strong in his ear, that Roger realizes he nearly lost this completely, nearly lost Brian, lost  _ everything _ , and it crashes into him so quickly, so suddenly, that it comes out as a sort of hiccuped sob, which opens the door for everything he’s been feeling for the last few weeks to come pouring out of him. His body shakes on the next sob that’s wrenched from him, and then he’s crying, really, really crying for the first time since this has all happened – save for, maybe, that time with Freddie in the hallway, but even that was not as intense as  _ this _ . He can’t catch his breath, his body is shaking, his lungs aching, his eyes blurred past the point of sight. He barely even hears Brian’s soft murmurs over the sound of his own tears, his throat tight and raw already, each sob feeling as if it’s punched out of him.

Brian rubs at his shoulder, runs his hand over his back, and it must be nearly fifteen minutes by the time Roger calms down enough to talk.

“Sorry, I’m – sorry,” he says, voice pitched higher than usual, throat sore from the intensity of his sobs, still hiccuping a little. “I – you’re the one in the hospital, I shouldn’t –”

“Hush,” Brian tells him, “none of that.” He cards his fingers through Roger’s hair. “It’s okay to cry, you know. I’m sure it’s a lot.”

“Says the one who’s been laid up for weeks with  _ hepatitis, _ ” Roger says, his laugh wet and more of a rush of breath than anything else.

Brian just hums. “I’m glad you’re here. I don’t…I’m just really glad you’re here.” 

“Where the hell else would I be?” Roger pushes himself up to look at Brian’s face better. “There is nowhere else I’d be.”

And, at the risk of revealing too much, he leans down to kiss Brian. It's been weeks, and it's the longest they've gone without some stolen kiss since they started this thing, and Roger had come to nearly aching with the way he missed Brian's lips, his touch – and he knows what that means, has spent the last weeks drowning in it as the truth of it sinks into his bones, settles in, terrifyingly permanent. 

He keeps the kiss slow and chaste, it's and probably full of too much emotion, probably tastes a little too much of salt – but Brian kisses him back, keeps it gentle as he works Roger’s mouth open, and the tenderness of it, the  _ love  _ Roger knows is behind it, is enough to send him over the edge again, and he has to pull away, bury his face in the side of Brian’s neck as he cries  _ again _ .

“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Brian asks him, the question pressed into the side of his head. He's seen Roger cry, sure, but never more than a quick release of emotions, never this consuming grief or fear or whatever it is, never anything that makes him sound so completely wrecked, never these sobs that break Brian's heart in quick succession. 

Roger shakes his head a little, keeps his face hidden in Brian’s neck.

“You can’t ever leave me,” Roger says, broken up by the way he gasps between soft sobs. He tightens his hands on the hospital shirt Brian’s wearing, a desperate, white-knuckle clench. “You can't – you can't ever leave me, okay?”

Brian threads his hand through Roger's hair, pressing his fingertips along his scalp each time, making soft calming sounds as Roger's words are swallowed by more of those heart-wrenching sobs. He hates it, hates the sound of Roger falling apart because of him, but he doesn't know how to help; he's hardly able to handle his own emotions, and he doubts he feels things as deeply, as intensely as Roger can, and often does.

“Shh, sweetheart, it's okay,” he says, rubbing at Roger's shoulder, keeping his voice soft both to avoid the strain on his vaguely sore throat and making any sudden loud noises. He imagines Roger would be easily frightened as he is now, so lost to his emotions as he is. “We made a deal, remember?” he says, brushing his hand through Roger's hair again, and again. “I'm here as long as you want me.”

 

(And that's something that could make  _ Brian  _ cry late in the middle of the night – he does his best to tell that little, vicious voice in his head that he's  _ Queen _ until the very end, no matter what, and they'll wait for him for as long as it takes, because they've  _ told  _ him so themselves, over and over and over again, but that dark, mean part of his mind refuses to accept that they still actually want him, that they're willing to wait the months he's coming to suspect it'll be before he can truly play again.  _ If _ , that corner whispers, and he has to squeeze his eyes shut against it.)

 

“God,” Roger says, breaking through the haze of tears, the word shaking and cracking, and he sits up enough to look at Brian, at the soft and vulnerable expression he's got. Roger flattens his palms on Brian's chest, one settled wide over his heart, and he shakes his head. “God, of course I want you,” he tells him, and maybe it's too close to the things they still haven't talked about, but Roger’ll be damned if he doesn't tell Brian the truth anymore – or, as close to it as he can let himself get. He sniffles, and he'll need to get a tissue in a minute, but the mere thought of letting go of Brian, of leaving the bed and losing the sound of his heart, the feel of his skin, warm and alive, nearly sends him off the edge again. He takes a hand off Brian to rub at his eyes, one and then the other, and he's sure his face is splotchy and red and puffy, his eyes still red-rimmed and shining.

“Sorry,” he says, again, feeling a little self-conscious about the total breakdown he's just had,  _ twice,  _ but Brian just offers him a small smile, though it looks a little sad at the edges.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Brian says, and he brings up the hand that's been resting at Roger's hip to his face, thumb running gently underneath his right eye and then his left, then settling against his neck. “Don't ever apologize for what you're feeling.”

Roger sniffles again, and he shakes his head.  _ How is Brian even real?  _ “Yeah, except all I've done for the past…I don't know,  _ weeks _ is worry, and be sad, and cry a little, while you've literally been fighting for your life.”

“Doesn't matter,” Brian tells him, and the look he's got on his face is a call-back to the way he looked the night he told Roger he loved him. Roger reaches for him, lightly tracing the pad of his finger over Brian's forehead, his nose, his lips. Brian catches Roger's hand with the both of his when he makes to pull away, wrapping them around Roger's hand. “You're allowed to feel whatever you're feeling. It's okay.”

Roger's eyes are on their hands. “Says you,” he frowns a little, creasing his forehead. “You won't even tell me what  _ you're  _ feeling since this whole thing started. I'm not gonna –”  _ break,  _ Roger thinks, but doesn't say, because he just had, hadn't he? He's just spent the last half an hour crumbled under the weight of everything, crying into Brian's hospital shirt. He shakes his head. “I can handle it, Bri. I want to help, but I can't if you don't tell me what's going on.”

Brian sighs. He brings Roger's captured hand to his mouth, closing his eyes as he presses a long, lingering kiss to Roger's palm. At least a minute goes by, and as the seconds pass Roger feels his chest ache, his heart squeezing tighter and tighter until it's too much, a few tears he didn't know he had left to cry welling in his eyes, falling down his already salt-tacky cheeks. 

“I'll be alright,” Brian says, voice so quiet but convinced like Roger hasn't heard in so long. “I promise I will. It's – there's going to be a lot to work through, I think,” Brian admits. “It's going to be long and it's going to hurt, in more ways than one, maybe more that it does. Than it has been.” He looks up at Roger, then, offering him a kind of sad, peaceful smile. Roger realizes it's the first time Brian's admitted to the pain. “But I'll get through it.”

“ _ We'll _ get through it,” Roger corrects, and it turns Brian's smile into a happier one. Roger takes a breath. “I know there's – I know there's a lot we have to talk about, and I know that now certainly isn't the time, but I…” The meager confidence he had scraped together deserts him, and he has to fight the urge to fidget, to run away from this conversation, from the feelings he’s starting to come to terms with, starting to realize have been there this whole time. A part of him knew from that first kiss, he thinks, knew from that first taste that Brian would ruin him for anyone else. 

He takes an easier out, falling forward to kiss Brian again, just as emotional as the last one, though Roger does his best to pour his heart into it, does his best to show the things he can’t say.

“We’ll talk about it when you’re feeling better,” Roger says, a whisper, really, in the space between them, and he presses his forehead to Brian’s, whose eyes are closed, eyelashes long and dark on his cheeks. The  _ I love you  _ that finds its way to the tip of Roger’s tongue comes up so fast it shocks him, a sudden, lightning flash of the words, and the feeling makes him gasp just a little, the surety of it stealing into his heart. Brian’s eyes flutter open at the sound, darting back and forth between Roger’s own, and Roger wonders what he sees there, what Brian can read in his eyes, on his face. 

Whatever it is he finds, Roger doesn't think he'll know, but Brian tangles his hand in Roger's hair, holds the back of Roger's head as he pulls him into another kiss. 

“I'll get better,” Brian tells him, a promise, and Roger lets himself believe it. 


End file.
